Wildcats plagued by inconsistency

DURHAM — For most of the season goaltending and defense have been strengths for the University of New Hampshire hockey team. Not Saturday night.

The Wildcats surrendered four goals and their starting goalie by midway through the second period of their 6-5 loss to Providence.

After an 11-1-2 start, UNH is 3-4-0 in its last seven games.

“I think the second half of the season we’ve been a little iffy on defense,” said junior forward Kevin Goumas. “That’s not the way we’ve been playing.”

The Wildcats have dropped two of their last three games and allowed 11 goals in the two losses by giving up too many quality chances.

They fell behind 4-0 Saturday by the 8:29 mark of the second period and goalie Casey DeSmith was pulled for the second time in three games.

Leading 1-0, the Friars scored three goals in the first 8:29 of the second period.

“We’ve got to play a full, 60-minute hockey game,” said senior forward John Henrion. “That’s kind of what we’ve been thriving on all season. You let down for five minutes, two minutes, 10 minutes, it really hurts you and it did in this scenario.”

And when the Wildcats tried to get back in the game, Providence had a quick response.

The most damaging blow came after UNH’s Dalton Speelman scored at 2:53 of the third period to pull the Wildcats within two, 5-3.

PC’s Kyle Smith answered 54 seconds later with what turned out to be the game-winning goal.

“That’s us not being ready after we get a goal,” Goumas said. “We just think we’re right back in it getting that one goal. They turn around and come right back and score and take the momentum right back from us.”

Goumas was on the ice for the Friars’ sixth goal.

“I’ll take the fall for that last one,” he said. “That was my man. That was the difference in the game. Any time you go down four goals it’s pretty hard to come back against anybody.”

The Friars had a similar response in the second period after Henrion put the Wildcats on the board to make it 4-1.

PC’s Derek Army scored his second goal of the period 69 seconds later.

“The way we handled them on the rush early in the game wasn’t very good,” said UNH coach Dick Umile. “We were watching the puck instead of picking people up.”

“We thought we had the momentum,” Henrion said, “and they’d come right back and pop one in. That was kind of deflating.”

The Wildcats suffered a similar loss to Boston College on Jan. 11. They scored first, but the Eagles came back with five unanswered goals.

UNH had hoped to gain ground in the Hockey East standings over the weekend — or at the very least keep pace — especially after league-leading BC lost to UMass on Friday.

“Everybody was aware of what was going on,” Umile said. “You don’t come out and play your best it’s going to get you.

“This makes the whole league even tighter,” he added.

The Wildcats are now four points behind BC with two games in hand and one point ahead of both Boston University of Providence, which ended years of futility against UNH with Saturday’s win.

“We made mistakes and didn’t pick up coverages,” Henrion said, “and that was the difference in the game. The three back-to-back-to-back goals were defensive mistakes on our part. That’s what hurt us.”

The Friars snapped a 10-game losing streak against the Wildcats and a 17-game winless streak. By taking advantage of defensive lapses by UNH, they won at the Whittemore Center for the first time since March 12, 2004.

“You need everybody on the same page,” Umile said. “The first three can do their job, but if four and five on the funnel back don’t pick up it doesn’t work.”

UNH takes on Merrimack in a home-and-home series next weekend. The teams play at Merrimack on Friday and meet at Manchester’s Verizon Wireless Arena the following night.

The Warriors took three of a possible four points at Maine over the weekend and currently occupy fifth place three points behind UNH.

Three of the Wildcats’ next four games are against Merrimack.

“The first half we played great defense,” Goumas said. “We were doing all the little things: backchecking, blocking shots, winning stick battles. I think we’ve been getting away from that a little bit. We’re not competing as hard as we were for pucks. We’ve been a little lackadaisical the second half of the season and it shows.”